


Return To Me, My Love

by camichats



Series: Imagine James and Sirius Prompts [164]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Baby Harry Potter, Blood, First Kiss, Getting Together, James Potter Dies, Lily Evans Potter Lives, Love Confessions, M/M, Resurrection, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:35:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25961422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camichats/pseuds/camichats
Summary: Sirius knew that it was war and he thought that he could deal with it, but it turned out that... he couldn't. Fortunately, Lily agreed with him.
Relationships: Sirius Black & Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/James Potter
Series: Imagine James and Sirius Prompts [164]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/752925
Comments: 10
Kudos: 79





	Return To Me, My Love

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: “based on the movie 1917 - James dies with Sirius hands on his stomach trying and failing to stop the bleeding.” 
> 
> I've never seen that movie and I wasn't able to get my hands on it, so I used the prompt as the second half only-- James dies while Sirius tries to save him. I didn't tag it with the archive warning because it's temporary, but JAMES DOES DIE IN THE BEGINNING AND YOU SEE IT HAPPEN. Also this turned out to be way longer than originally intended because I thought of conflict after James comes back and I couldn't not include it.

Even as Sirius pressed his hands to James's stomach to staunch the bleeding, he knew it wouldn't do any good. He'd lost his wand. He couldn't apparate them to St. Mungo's, and he couldn't cast any spell that might buy them time. With the hole in his side, there was no telling if the healing spells that Sirius knew would even do any good if he could try them. He didn't have his wand. Merlin, why didn't he have his wand? Sure it had been taken from him and he'd been lucky to make it out of that room alive, but what was the fucking point if James was going to die from it now? 

The others were around. For once, they outnumbered the Death Eaters instead of the other way around. All James had to do was last until someone came 'round to find them. More of James's blood seeped around his fingers, and Sirius bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. "Hold on James, just- just hold on. A little bit longer and you'll be fine. We'll get you in hospital, and you can-" he choked on a sob, tears blurring his vision. 

James knew just as well as he did that he wasn't going to be getting up and walking away from this. "Sirius..." There was blood in his teeth. That couldn't be a good sign. He was trying to hold on Sirius's arm, but his grip slipped and he didn't have the energy to try again. "It's- cold, innit?" 

Sirius pressed down harder, then eased up at the grimace of pain on James's face. He shook his head. "It's bloody hot out here, James." 

"Huh. It's..." 

Sirius waited for him to finish. He never did. 

By the time Fabian and Gideon found them, the blood had stopped. Sirius had it all over his hands, and it had sunk into his trousers from where he'd been kneeling next to James. He didn't remember much except that he was crying, and they tried to pull him off of James and he'd started screaming that he wasn't dead. Remembering anything more probably would've destroyed him. He didn't want to think about it. James was... gone. And that was bad enough. He didn't need to have every detail burned into his brain so he could over analyse it. 

Looking back, he didn't know what he'd said to James. He couldn't remember what James said to him. He couldn't remember the exact moment that James had died; he didn't even know if he'd noticed that moment at the time that it had happened. 

The first thing he really remembered about the whole ordeal was about a week later, when Dumbledore asked him if he was going to be alright. 

"No." 

"Can you keep going?" 

"No." He'd left. He hadn't looked back. He went straight to Lily. 

Harry was asleep in her arms, and she smiled sadly when she answered the door. It used to be that if Harry went to sleep, she would immediately put him down. She couldn't stand to let him too far from her though, not after James... "It's good to see you Sirius," she said. She had to wipe at her eyes a moment later. She pulled him into a one-armed hug. "I'm glad you're here." 

Sirius swallowed, hugging her back while being mindful of Harry's position. "Yeah. It's good to see you too." 

"Come in?" Lily asked hopefully. 

He nodded, and she stepped aside to make room for him. He looked at Harry for a long moment. Longer than he'd meant to. He looked so much like James had as a baby that it hurt. Potter-Mum and Potter-Dad had taken great pleasure in showing Sirius the baby pictures when he moved in with them. James had been a little embarrassed but mostly rolled his eyes, and now he would never get to see how far that resemblance carried with Harry. The messy hair that marked the Potter Family was already distinct atop Harry's head. His colouring was more like Lily's, and his eyes had settled into familiar green a few months ago. Everything else screamed James. The shape of his head, the chubby cheeks, hell, even the ears. This was the same baby that James had handed to him the day he'd been born, and Sirius had sworn he would do everything he could to protect him. It had been a promise to Lily, to himself, to Harry, and to James. He wasn't about to break that promise. "We should go." 

"Go?" She didn't get it. It was so far from what she expected from him that she couldn't even guess what he meant. "Go where?" 

"I dunno. Somewhere. Out of Europe. Get some space." 

"I-." Lily blinked. "Sirius, this is our home. We can't just leave. There's a war on. Our friends are fighting out there." 

"Yeah. I don't know about you, but I can't fight anymore." Lily hadn't been able to since getting pregnant, and raising Harry had taken up the rest of her time. Sirius had felt nauseous holding his wand. If it were a life or death situation, he wasn't sure that he'd be able to cast a simple Protego to protect himself-- or anyone else. "Look, you can stay if you want, but I'm going, and I'd like if you and Harry came with me." He knew that they were the only other people who understood what it was like to lose James. Everyone _thought_ they knew because James had that easy friendliness with everyone in the Order, but he'd always been _more_ to the three of them. Well, the two of them. Harry was too young to understand why his father wasn't around anymore-- too young to really understand this loss. Lily didn't love James the same way that Sirius did, but she was the closest. He knew this was hitting her hard for more than just the-father-of-her-child; they'd been best friends too. 

"How can you leave? That's not like you." Her voice was low so as to not wake Harry, but there was an intensity there that meant, were the situation different, she might be yelling at him-- or at least she would be close to it. 

"Maybe not, but I'm going." Truth be told, it left a sour taste in Sirius's mouth, but he knew that he couldn't stay here. It felt far too cowardly, running away, but staying would be nothing more than a death wish in action for himself. "You can think about it. I'm leaving on Friday." He needed that time to pack up his shite and take care of James's desk at the Ministry. He had to clear out his flat and talk to the landlord too. He'd be able to cram it all in one day if he wanted, but Lily needed time to think, and it was difficult to force himself to do anything out of the flat. 

* * *

Lily didn't need until Friday to come up with an answer. She showed up the day after they talked, Harry in her arms and a bag on her shoulders; Sirius didn't need a peek inside to know it had the whole of her worldly possessions in it. 

With Lily and Harry around, Sirius didn't need until Friday to get everything done. They were out of Great Britain-- and all of Europe-- on Wednesday. 

* * *

**Fourteen Years Later**

"Why are you giving me that look?" Lily asked suspiciously. It's not that Dumbledore was being mean. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was being far too nice, considering that her son had just broken into the Ministry and destroyed an entire subsection of their building, including several irreplaceable magical artifacts. Neville was the official leader of the group, but he was also the Boy Who Lived, and Harry seemed happy to take all the blame for things that went wrong. 

It's not as though Dumbledore ever yelled at her or summat, but he did occasionally get a pinched look about his eyes when they talked about Harry. This wasn't like that. This was a look more like he was trying to give her bad news. She had no bloody idea what that bad news could be since she'd seen Harry not ten minutes ago, and he'd been fine. Shaken up, but unharmed. 

"There was... an event." 

"An event," she repeated flatly. "Other than a bunch of teenagers breaking into the Ministry of Magic with no problems?" 

"After they were there." 

"Okay?" 

"James..." 

Lily stiffened. Sirius had gotten a bad fever a few months back, and his insistence that James was in the house somewhere had broken her heart. His death was a wound that had never healed, and she knew that it never would. Any time they talked about him, it was tinged with sadness. "What about him," she asked tightly. 

"He's back." 

"The dead don't come back. Not whole." 

"The impossible has a habit of happening around young Mister Potter. It's him, Lily. James, as he was the same day that he died." 

She grit her teeth. This couldn't be. She _knew_ that it couldn't be, but there was still a treacherous flare of hope in her stomach. "I need to see him before I believe it." 

"Of course. Come with me." 

"Have you told Sirius?" 

"I thought it best for you to believe it first, before speaking with him." 

Yeah, that was probably a good idea. Sirius wouldn't exactly take this well if it turned out to be a trick. She wouldn't take it well, but she could come back from it far easier than he could. She hoped. 

Lily had a million worries as she followed Dumbledore, but all of it evaporated the moment she saw James. It was him. It shouldn't have been possible, but it was him. She didn't have to ask him anything to be sure; there was just the sense of life, of soul or whatever you wanted to call it that made her certain that it was him. His presence felt the same. 

And then he saw her, grinned, and said, "Hey Lily, did you see how big Harry got?" 

She didn't have it in her to be embarrassed that she was crying in front of the kids as she threw her arms around him-- of course Harry had wanted to spend as much time with him as he could, and his friends had all wanted to stay together-- because it was _James_. It was James, and he was here, and he was real. Buggering hell, he even smelled the same. She couldn't call up the memory of his smell on command, but she could recognise it now that it was back. He didn't fit the same way in her arms, not anymore. Her body had changed, gotten older, and she didn't mind it one bit. 

James looked the same. Like nothing had changed. He smiled the same way. No one smiled the same after everything, but James did. Unbidden, she wondered if he remembered dying and that Sirius had been there when it happened. It had been bad enough for her to hear about it, but Sirius had been there as his life slowly drained from him, with nothing to do except watch it happen. James glanced behind her, searching. "Did Sirius not come with you?" 

"No, he er-" she wiped at her eyes. "He's probably yelling at the Minister right now." 

"Sounds like something he'd do," James said, aiming for teasing. He sort of hit it, but it was obvious that he didn't understand why Sirius wasn't here to see him. "So am I going to him or are you calling him here?" James asked Dumbledore. 

"I'll go get him," Lily said quickly. Sirius would take it best coming from her. "You stay here and get to know Harry a little better. He's-" her throat closed up, and she had to swallow a couple times before she could continue, "He's almost as old as you are." 

"That's going to take some getting used to." 

Lily went around the table to give Harry a tight hug before she left. Then she gave James another hug, because this whole thing was utterly unbelievable, and she wanted to know that she'd kept her family as close to her as she could. Dumbledore went to the floo with her, and she turned down his invitation to join her. He'd done all he could at the Ministry; Sirius was blowing off steam and a whole lot of panic from Harry nearly getting killed. Bringing Dumbledore back to that wouldn't end well, and she wasn't looking for a confrontation. She wanted to grab Sirius and bring him back here because every moment that he wasn't with James was a moment that had been wasted. James was back-- alive-- and Sirius didn't even know about it. 

She interrupted where, sure enough, Sirius was giving the Ministry officials a piece of his mind. "Sirius, you need to come home." 

He frowned a little, confused. 

"Now," she added with a meaningful widening of her eyes, and he didn't know what was going on, but he knew that he should listen to her. 

She pulled him through the floo, then took a deep breath. This was it. This was one of the most important things she was ever going to tell him, and she didn't have the words. 

"Everything okay?" he asked. 

"James is alive," she blurted. "Or- resurrected, I guess. It's him. Not a ghost or an Inferus or anything. It's _him_." 

"That's not possible," Sirius said immediately. 

"I said the same thing, but Sirius, I swear that it's him. Go in there," she said, pointing to the dining room door where everyone had convened. "See for yourself." 

Instead of heading straight there to either prove her wrong or have it confirmed, he stayed standing where he was. There was a mixture of hope and pain on his face, and she knew that he was feeling the same way she had before she saw him. 

"Come on," she said, tugging on his arm. When he easily followed her, she knew that all he had needed was a nudge. If he did it himself and it turned out to be nothing, he'd only have himself to blame for hoping for the impossible. But like this, he was following Lily, same as he'd done for years while they raised Harry. She pulled him over to the door and pushed it open, both of them stepping inside like they'd done a dozen times since the Order re-formed. 

It was a tangible thing, the way the air stilled when Sirius and James saw each other for the first time in over a decade. Sirius was frozen in place at her side, but James was on his feet, barreling into him and hugging him so tightly it had to have hurt. 

There was a pause, where Sirius's eyes widened, and he was taking in all the same details that Lily had. The way James felt, the way he smelled, the way he looked like not a damn thing had changed since his death. His death could be seen on both of them, but not James. The small defense Sirius had built up to protect himself from disappointment crumbled in an instant, and he was hugging James back, just as tight. 

"Don't _ever_ do that again, you tosser," Sirius muttered. 

* * *

James asked if he could stay with Sirius that night, and Sirius had immediately said yes. 

"Oh Merlin," Sirius said, looking around the room. "I know I've got your old clothes here somewhere, but I can't remember where I stashed them." Lily had thought that he'd gotten rid of them, but he couldn't bear to get rid of a single thing of James's. Every last scrap of paper he'd written on was preserved and stored, tucked away so it couldn't be damaged. Sirius needed to have it for peace of mind, but he never looked at them. Knowing that they existed was enough. The trouble was that he'd been so determined to never look at them that he'd completely forgotten where they were. 

"It's alright. I can borrow some of yours, yeah?" 

"Yeah. Yeah, I don't know why I didn't think of that. Dresser's over there, pick out whatever." 

It took a little bit of rifling, but James grabbed some loose, comfy clothes and changed, utterly unashamed of his audience. Of course, it was Sirius, and they'd done this a hundred times before in the course of living together. It was only after he was once again dressed that James looked nervous, ruffling his hair. He didn't have his glasses on, which served to make him look younger and his eyes more wide. "I know this isn't... the best time, but I wanted to tell you. I mean, I never did before, and what good did it do me, you know?" 

"What're you talking about?" 

"I love you." A quick inhale. "I'm _in_ love with you. I should've told you ages ago, but I always thought that I had more time and- and obviously I didn't. It's- it's better late than never, isn't it?" James asked, looking at him desperately. 

Sirius couldn't feel anything but a sinking numbness. This wasn't James. He'd been so happy for the idea of having him back that he hadn't investigated it. 

"I know it's been- Merlin, a decade for you, so even if you used to feel the same, you probably don't anymore, but I had to tell you." 

He'd wanted so badly for this to be James, and it wasn't. It was a projection. A damn good one. So many details were perfect. The way his hair stuck up on the right side-- never the left. How, when he smiled, his eyes would crinkle until they looked nearly shut, but one eye was always a little bit wider. The little wiggle he did with his nose to get his glasses back in the correct position when his hands were occupied. The way he acted like it was his personal duty to make sure Sirius had positive, casual physical contact. 

"Sirius?" 

It had all been a dream come true, and Sirius hadn't questioned it. He'd been doubtful when Lily told him, it's true, but the moment he laid eyes on James, all of it had been gone. He'd been so happy, so relieved that he'd stop feeling like half a man walking around, that every doubt had vanished in an instant. 

"Sirius?" James said again. He took a step forward and put a hand on Sirius's arm. 

Sirius jerked back. This wasn't James. He couldn't stand here and pretend like it was. He couldn't lie to his face to keep suspicions down before he talked to Lily. Under usual circumstances, he would've already gone to her, but she'd fallen asleep happy and deserved some rest. Sirius fumbled for the doorknob and practically ran out of the room, the door slamming behind him. 

James didn't remember dying. He was pretty sure that this was worse though. Merlin, Remus was right; he really was over-dramatic. But right on the trail of that thought was the idea that it was accurate to how he felt. It wasn't just a rejection; James could handle a rejection. Hell, that's what he'd been expecting when he made the decision to tell Sirius. He'd been expecting a sad smile or maybe a stricken expression as Sirius said that he didn't feel the same way-- or that he had, once, but it was so long ago for him and James had been gone for so long that he'd moved on. James had been prepared for that sort of heartbreak. 

But Sirius hadn't just said no, it had been a _vehement_ no, like he was upset with James for even thinking it, let alone saying it. Then he left. No words of comfort or denial. Nothing. He left like he couldn't stand to be in the same room as him. Rejection was one thing; revulsion was quite another. He would've been able to take Sirius turning him down, but he couldn't handle losing him entirely. 

Numbly, James backed up to the bed and sat down. He'd lost him. 

He hadn't been back for twelve hours, and he'd lost one of the most important people in his life. Would Lily hate him for it too? Would Harry? He'd seen how close all of them were. He'd thought, earlier in the evening, that he didn't really fit there anymore, and this was more reason to think that he wasn't going to get anything like his old life back. He'd known that from the moment he got spit out and told what year it was. There was no going back, no fixing the mistakes he'd made. 

He knew how everyone thought of the whole ordeal with him coming out of the Veil, and their way was more accurate even if it didn't feel that way to him. They felt like he'd died and come back, but as far as he was concerned, he'd been on ice for a decade and a half, then come out to see that everything had changed without him. 

James remembered getting up that morning for work, and he remembered getting to the Ministry. Everyone in the entire world could tell him that he'd died later that night during a fight between the Order and the Death Eaters, but it sounded like a weird story and not something that had happened to him. He didn't have any memories from that. He left the flat for work one morning like he always did, and that night, Sirius was older and freaking out. Lily had gotten older and, with nothing else to do, had put her entire heart and soul into raising Harry. Harry had gone from a chubby little baby to a self-confident teenager, and all of it happened in less than a day. 

He'd lost the life he'd made, got introduced to the world he'd have to get used to, then lost Sirius. 

He didn't know when he started crying, but he wasn't surprised. He bent his head down and tried to keep quiet; he didn't want to wake Lily or make Sirius mad at him. 

* * *

Lily awoke to a very tense household, although she couldn't tell straight away. She padded to the kitchen to start some tea and spotted Sirius already sat at the table like he'd been there all night. She figured it had been all night because there were half a dozen dirty mugs by the sink that hadn't been there when she went to bed. Not to mention that Sirius usually didn't get up a minute before he had to. It didn't sound like James was up yet, which made it more strange that Sirius was out here. 

"Have you been out here all night?" Lily asked. 

Sirius jumped. He hadn't heard her walk in. He cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair as if to fix it even though it didn't need fixing. "Yeah." 

"Everything okay?" 

"That's not James." 

"What? What are you talking about? Of course it's James." 

"Did you check?" 

"No, but I'm sure they were certain before they brought him back and told everyone he was alive." She didn't mean to snap at him, but that's how it came out. Lily took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. "I know that you're having trouble accepting it, but can't you just be happy? James is back, and we never thought that would happen. Enjoy it." 

"If you didn't check for yourself, how are you so sure?" Sirius asked, looking up at her. His eyes were red from lack of sleep, and he had a haunted cast to his eyes that reminded her of the first couple years after James's death. "Did you ask him anything at all? Or did Dumbledore-- a man who barely knew him-- say that it was him and you took it as fact?" 

"Do you really think that Dumbledore would've said it was him if it wasn't? What could the two of us possibly know more about death magics than him that could help us here? It's James. I know it's hard, and I- yeah, okay, it's unbelievable, so much so that I almost wonder if it was real. But couldn't you tell, the moment you saw him, that it was truly James?" 

"Yes, but what if that was a compulsion too? This is complex, woven magic that-" 

"Have you found any evidence of magic on him?" 

Sirius scowled, and Lily took the seat across from him. 

"What happened to make you so suspicious? You were happy yesterday." 

Sirius's jaw clenched. "He said something that the real James never would have." 

"I don't want to say it, but how can you be sure of that? It's been a decade. Things change. _Memories_ change. We're not going to turn him into a lab rat because he said you like earl grey the best." 

"The bloody hell is a lab rat?" 

"That's not the point. What did he say?" 

"If you think it's nothing, why do you want to know?" 

"Because you're my friend, and I'm not going to let you drive yourself mad when you could be happy." 

* * *

The next time Lily saw James, he was crying quietly. Sirius had told her what James said, and it looked like he'd been telling the truth, if not the entirety of the situation. "Hey," she said softly. 

James wiped at his face a little and tried to give her a smile. "Hey. What's up?" 

"Sirius told me what happened. You okay?" 

"I'll get there. Sometime. Assuming that he doesn't want me dead," he muttered. 

"He doesn't want you dead; he's worried that you're not really yourself." 

"What?" 

"He took your confession to mean that you're not really James Potter. I agreed to get you tested to ease his worries, so let's get some breakfast, get dressed, and go to St. Mungo's. Nothing invasive, I promise." 

"Yeah." James wiped at his face some more. "That's probably a good idea. They weren't very thorough before. Dumbledore asked me a couple questions before and said that it was me." 

"James... you're not doubting it, are you?" 

"'course not," James lied. He'd always been bad at lying unless it was life or death. 

Lily bit back a sigh. She understood. She knew that this situation was shite and they were all having trouble dealing with it, but she just wanted for everything to be okay so they could be happy. Harry was going to be home soon, and it wouldn't do any of them good if they were all dealing with it poorly. 

* * *

"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" Lily asked Sirius. James was clear on the other side of the room, talking to Harry, and no one was close enough to them to overhear the specifics. 

"I don't see how the good news could be better than the bad, so spit it out." 

"The good news is that it's really James, and he's healthy and he's here to say." 

Unconsciously, Sirius brightened. "How is there any bad news with that?" 

"Well, it's only bad news for you." 

Sirius frowned at her. 

"He told you that he loved you, and you were so convinced that it wasn't true, you thought it wasn't even James. So er," she pat him on the shoulder, "have fun with that." 

Sirius cursed under his breath and rubbed at his eyes. "Put yourself in my position, Lils. He never said anything, gets... resurrected and suddenly says that he's been in love with me for ages? Would you have trusted that?" 

She wouldn't have, but that's not the point. Agreeing with Sirius wouldn't help him any. "I'm not the one you need to tell it to. Look, I'm not in James's head, so I can't say for sure what he's thinking, but it seems to me like he took that as a rejection." 

"What makes you think it _wasn't_ a rejection? It's been... over ten years, and he's still twenty. I'm not anymore." 

Lily's gaze on him was steady. When she smiled at him, it was small and fond. "I know because I know you. You look at James the same way that he looks at you. Now, did I know before that that look meant love? No, but now that I know that it's true for James, that means it's true for you too." 

"I would hate you if you weren't so helpful," Sirius muttered, hugging her. 

"Does that mean you're going to talk to him?" 

"Well. It means I won't be avoiding him," Sirius said, and she was going to take that as a good thing. 

Sirius set his drink down and made his way over to James, wading through the crowd of people like a man on a mission. She was to take it as a _very_ good thing. 

"Hey James?" 

"Yeah?" James said automatically, looking over at him. Then he saw that it was Sirius, and he straightened. "Hey." 

Sirius turned to face Harry. "Mind if I steal your dad for a bit? I think Lils might want to talk to you about where you're staying." 

Harry nodded, gave James a slightly awkward goodbye and went one direction while Sirius and James went the other. 

"I'm er, cleared," James said. "Officially me, officially not a danger to you or anyone else." 

"Yeah, Lily told me." 

"Oh. Good. So erm what, what are we doing?" 

Sirius knew that he should be smarter about it, and he was aware of that _while_ he was doing it, but he still pushed James up against the wall after they were alone in the hallway and kissed him. "I... James..." Sirius swallowed thickly. "I should've done that when we were fourteen." 

James laughed, quiet and relieved. "I'm just glad you're doing it now." He leaned up, and Sirius leaned down, and they were kissing again. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is from a prompt driven blog @[imaginejamesandsirius](https://imaginejamesandsirius.tumblr.com) on tumblr. Feel free to drop by!


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